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Wednesday, January 8, 2014

The Genealogy Night of the Living Dead Revisited?

This notice appears on the startup page for New.FamilySearch.org. It says:

Use FamilySearch Family Tree!

Updates can no longer be made from new.FamilySearch.org. Please use the FamilySearch Family Tree, which adds powerful tools for data accuracy, usability, and collaboration.Updates can no longer be made from new.FamilySearch.org. Please use the FamilySearch Family Tree, which adds powerful tools for data accuracy, usability, and collaboration.

However, a blogger in an email to me claims that the site is only mostly dead:

I have found that new.familysearch.org is not strictly read-only, When I make a change to a name, date or place, I was surprised to still see that change reflected in new.familysearch.org. Using Ancestral Quest I can still see other variations of names, dates and places that are hidden in Family Tree and I can still "reset the summary" to the most correct information, substantiated by the sources I find.

Well, assuming this is correct, the statement on New.FamilySearch.org might still be correct. As an attorney I would probably say something like, the statement says "Updates can no longer be made from new.familysearch.org." This says nothing about updates made from third-party programs such as Ancestral Quest...and so forth and so forth.

So is New.FamilySearch.org really READ ONLY or is it only mostly READ ONLY?

I spent some time poking around in New.FamilySearch.org directly and it does appear to be more than mostly dead. I could see all the data, but none of the links to make changes worked at all. Anyone else out there finding this backdoor to the program still open? I went into Ancestral Quest and tried to make a change to a record in New.FamilySearch.org and I could not. So, I am not sure what the commentator is talking about.

8 comments:

The relationship between n.FS and FS-Family Tree is complicated. Presently a pretty anonymous entity identified only as "FamilySearch" is migrating family data from n.FS to FS-FT. In an unknown number of intances this is not just adding data, but reconfiguring families. Some users have discovered that errors they've fixed more than once are being reconstituted by "FamilySearch" more than once in the past couple of weeks.

I am the one who previously mentioned that I can still 'reset the summary', now called ‘select Family Tree Values’ in new.familysearch.org and Family Tree using Ancestral Quest. I tried it again just now, changing Simeon Lorenzo Holcomb to Simeon L. Holcume then back again to Simeon Lorenzo Holcomb. His ID # is LHPH-Y4Y. I can change birth & death information too and these changes appear in Family Tree as well as in new.familysearch.org.

To see alternate data from new.familysearch.org that is hidden in Family Tree and ‘reset the summary’ or ‘select Family Tree Values’,

I go to the person in my Ancestral Quest file, Highlight that person then Use the CTRL + E shortcut to see that person in Family Tree.through AQI then click on 'import from nFS' then I click on the drop down arrows next to name, birth & death so I can check all the submitted names, dates & places.

I often find complete dates and places in nFS that are hidden in Family Tree. When I find better data that is hidden in Family Tree, and substantiated by sources, I select the best data and ‘select Family Tree Values’ so the hidden information becomes available in Family Tree. It also appears in the Summary view in nFS. I am using version 14.00.17 of Ancestral Quest. I hope that is clearer.

Thanks for your very detailed explanation. I think that making New.FamilySearch.org read only had a very limited effect on the problems we are experiencing due to the common database between NFS and FSFT.

As I understand it from various blog posts, Family Tree and New Family Search databases are still linked and sync with each other. If you make a correction in Family Tree, the summary in New Family Search changes to that new value. I wonder if the commentator is really working directly with New Family Search or if he just doesn't realize that the changes are occurring via Family Tree?